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The home of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz burned to the ground in the deadly California wildfires, but his widow escaped, her stepson said Thursday. Jean Schulz, 78, evacuated before flames engulfed her hillside home Monday and is staying with a daughter, Monte Schulz says. The Schulzes built the split-level home in Santa Rosa in the 1970s and the cartoonist lived there until his death in 2000, per the AP. "It's the house he died in. All of their memorabilia and everything is all gone," Monte Schulz says. He hadn't heard from his stepmother and learned about the disaster from his brother, Craig Schulz, who also lost his Santa Rosa home in the fire. "The fire came by at, like, two in the morning," Monte Schulz says. "Everything's gone."

Monte Schulz says he hadn't visited his stepmother's home in recent years because he lives more than 300 miles away in Santa Barbara. He wasn't sure what might have burned. "Obviously stuff from my dad and their life together, all gone," he says. Schulz usually worked at an outside studio, and most of his original artwork and memorabilia are at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, which escaped the flames. But the loss of the house itself is painful, Monte Schulz said. "I never lived there, but I visited all the time," he says. "That time of our lives is now completely erased." Fires in the Northern California wine country have killed at least 31 people since they began Sunday, per ABC News.

Several elders in my family maintain family archives of genealogy information, photos, and videos, including me. I digitized the photos some years back, and distributed CD's to every major branch of the family. I also put the photos in an album on Facebook, notified family members, and encouraged them to download the album. If the originals are destroyed in a natural disaster, or any other way, multiple people now have back up copies.